Tar Baby

women he had known: their “wiles” and their “ways” till he settled on the nurse he’d married in the States. His grievances about the lady were trotted out one by one for show: her children by a former marriage; her ailments; her habits of dress; her laugh; her relatives; her food; her looks. He allowed as how she was faithful, but that’s all she was. Had she been otherwise he swore he would never have left her out of gratitude. As it was, she was insatiable: mean, arrogant and insatiable. He went to bed fully clothed on that note: the abnormal sexual hunger of black American nurses.

Son lay down on the cot Alma Estee sometimes used while Therese got ready and he did not know he slept until she woke him. He sat up relieved that the jaw’s harp in his head had stopped. She brought a flashlight, but they did not need it to walk down the hill or to find the Prix de France. They checked the gas and agreed there was enough for a round trip. They rowed away from the dock until they were far enough out to start a motor without attracting the attention of any gendarmes who might be on contraband patrol. It was raining a little, getting foggier, but the sea was not high. Therese insisted on steering for she knew the way, she said, and could not talk the directions to him. The feel of the current was what she went by. She only prayed no larger boats were out there, as hampered in vision as she was in the fog.

He remembered the trip over as half an hour, forty-five minutes at most, but this trip seemed longer. They’d been out at least an hour. The boat rocked and skipped, rocked and skipped to a regular beat. The jaw’s harp was back like a nuthouse lullaby and he dozed a little and woke; dozed a little and woke. Each time his eyes opened they rested on the shadow of Marie Therese Foucault. Each time her shoulders and profile grew darker—her outline fainter. Till finally he could barely make her out at all, he simply felt her feet against his. Even her breathing could not be heard over the motor’s breath and the insistent harp in his head. The light rain stopped and the clouds descended to examine that party of two. One tranquil, dozing, weakly fighting sleep—the other, head turned landward intent on a horizon she could not possibly see even if she were not as blind as justice. Her hands on the lever were nimble, steady. The upper part of her body leaned forward straining as if to hear fish calling from the sea. Behind the curious clouds, hills crouched on all fours and at their knees were rocks and the permanent sea. Therese cut the motor and dropped one oar to guide with. The tide carried them and the little boat seemed to be floating on its own. She held the oar midships until it struck a rock, split and slowed the boat to a half turn and then a rocking on baby waves. Son stirred and opened his eyes. There was nothing to see—not sky or island or Marie Therese. The sea was very still as in a lagoon or a cove.

“Here,” she said. “We are here.”

“Where?” All he could see was mist. “Where’s the dock?”

“On the other side. We are at the back of Isle des Chevaliers. You can climb here on the rocks. They are all together here, like a bridge. You can crawl them all the way to shore.”

“It’s too foggy,” he said. “I can’t see my way.”

“Don’t be afraid. This is the place. On the far side.”

“I can’t see shit. I can hardly see you.”

“Don’t see; feel,” she said. “You can feel your way, but hurry, hurry. I have to get back.”

“This doesn’t make sense. Why don’t you go to the other side, where the dock is?”

“No,” she said. “This is the place.”

“Isle des Chevaliers?”

“Yes. Yes. The far side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Son took his tie out of his jacket pocket and began to knot it around the handle of his traveling bag. “I don’t get it, Therese. You bring me here as a favor, but before I can say thanks, you make it hard for me to land and even harder to get to the house. What’d you do that for?”

“This is the place. Where you can take a choice. Back there you say you don’t. Now you do.”

“What the hell are you talking about? If I get off these rocks without drowning, I have to stomp all around in those hills to get to the other side. It must be, good God, ten miles. I’ll be all night and half the day…”

“Hurry! Get out. I have to get away before the water is too small.”

He attached the tie to his waist so the bag hung from behind him. Then he moved over to negotiate the rocks.

“It’s easy,” she said. “Climb to it and the next one is right behind, then another and another like a road. Then the land.”

“You sure, Therese?”

“Yes. Yes,” she said, then as he turned toward the rocks she touched his back. “Wait. Tell me. If you cannot find her what will you do? Live in the garden of some other white people house?”

He looked around to tell her to mind her own business, but the inability to see her face in the fog stopped him.

“Small boy,” she said, “don’t go to L’Arbe de la Croix.” Her voice was a calamitous whisper coming out of the darkness toward him like jaws. “Forget her. There is nothing in her parts for you. She has forgotten her ancient properties.”

He swallowed and, saying nothing, turned back to the rocks, kneeling, stretching his hand to feel them. He touched one. It was dry above the water line and rough, but large enough, it seemed to him, to hold a grown man.

He leaned out of the boat tipping it so it took a little water. The bag knocked clumsily against his thigh. He sat back down and undid the knot. “Keep it for me,” he said. Then he grabbed with both hands the surface of the rock and heaved himself onto it. He lay there for a bit, then stretched his arm again and felt the sister rock at his fingertips. Now he could smell the land.

“Hurry,” she urged him. “They are waiting.”

“Waiting? Who’s waiting?” Suddenly he was alarmed.